The council being the council, they wrapped the appliance in crime scene tape and stuck a note to it. And left it there for a week.

An update sent round to all members of staff, titled Workforce Update 28, said: “The microwave in the canteen has unfortunately been used to heat excrement and cannot be made hygienic or safe to use.

“Please do not use. We will have it disconnected and removed.

“This kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable and we will not be replacing the microwave.”

Staff has taken to referring to the whole incident as Workforce Update 28. Which is the meme I want. It’s my meme, and I want it.

Unfortunately, I haven’t pinned down the situation where this phrase would be appropriate. Which of life’s many vicissitudes corresponds to “someone has heated a bowl of shit in the communal microwave”?

When he grows up, though, this little fucker would happily eat your liver with a good chianti and fava beans, hold the chianti and fava beans.

I’ve posted about Scottish wildcats before — body of a housecat, soul of a chainsaw-wielding escaped mental patient on a bad hair day. They start off cute, but harden into red-hot fists of burning man hatred by the time they reach adulthood.

A genuine wild beast — sadly, they are close enough to housecats to interbreed, which is proving to be their downfall. Estimates are, there may be as few as 400 purebred wildcats running free. In fact, though, there may be as few as zero purebreds in the wild.

So they’ve developed a new DNA test to identify the pure of gene. They hope to have it ready by Christmas. I’m not clear on what is new or unique about this test, but good luck to them trapping and bloodtesting all those psychomoggies.

Meet my new bestest friend, Denty the Brain Damaged Herring Gull. I tried to get a closer picture, but he was being coy tonight.

Uncle B named him Denty, on account of he has a pink featherless dent right between his eyes. It’s like if his head was made of clay and you gave him a good poke with your index finger, like that.

Pretty clearly, somebody got off a damn good shot at him (as people around here will do) and he survived. He’s loopy as a bastard, though.

Of an afternoon, he (I guess it’s a he) lands at the peak of the roof, and then slides down the tiles sideways, surfer-like. Usually pretty skillfully on his feet, but occasionally on his butt. Our roof is l-o-o-o-ng. Then I flip pieces of stale bread into the grass for him and he stalks around stabbing them with his beak.

The chickens are afraid of him, the cat is fascinated. And me, I grew up a thousand miles from the sea, so I don’t have the coastal person’s native disgust for gulls. I think he’s pretty cool.

Turns out, the general shape of thing worked out by generations of blacksmiths is equally useful on the miniature scale. These things are intended for jewelers.

I’ve always wanted one for, like, generally doing tiny things to tiny things, but I specifically bought this one as an aid to hand-cutting pearl. I’ve cut a few bits to replace missing inlays on an old banjo, and I was forever trying to find the edge of a book or something to prop the blank against. Then I thought, hey, I know…

Get your own, official, do-it-yourself Barack Obama “You Didn’t Build That” joke kit! Just download the pre-cut, multi-layered Photoshop template, insert a snapshot of the life’s work of some poor taxpaying sap, and watch Dear Leader denigrate the value of his hard work and initiative.

The Obama camp is out in force today, screaming that when he said, “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that” what he meant was you didn’t build the roads and schools and other infrastructury things that made the business possible.

Take your average businessman. No, he didn’t build the roads to his factory. He also didn’t sew the suit he’s wearing, didn’t brew the cup of coffee he bought at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to work, didn’t put the gold crown on his back molar. Duh. So what?

Everyone buys many thousands of goods and services in a lifetime — why are we supposed to feel perpetually guilty about the ones we’re forced to purchase from government and pay for with taxes?

The bus behind the Coke bus was a Lloyd’s Bank bus, but sadly they were not giving out free money samples. I did ask.

There was a great rolling parade of corporate sponsors driving slowly ahead of the torch making a helluva racket. Dozens of coppers on motorbikes rolling around sealing off roads as the procession lumbered down the A259. I had a tame bobby with an earbutton radio next to me, so I knew what was coming.

The torch bearer himself was toward the end, a chubby gentleman of mature years. Bit of an anticlimax. Then they relit a lantern from the flame, blew out the torch, trundled the lantern onto a bus and off to the next town.

Not exactly a day at the circus, but above average for a Wednesday morning. Plus, free Coke!